God's Idea of Rest

God's Idea of Rest 

For as yet you have not come to the rest and the inheritance which the Lord your God is giving you. 

Heavenly Father, this is not my rest. There remains a rest for the people of God. Behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for me, even Jesus . . . who said in His Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, He would have told me. He went to prepare a place for me. And if He goes and prepares a place for me, He will come again and receive me to Himself; that where He is, there I may be also. With Christ, which is far better. God will wipe away every tear from my eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain. There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest. So I lay up for myself treasures in heaven . . . for where my treasure is, there my heart will be also. I set my mind on things above, not on things on the earth. 

Lord, You know the rest I need— physical, emotional, mental, even spiritual. Thank You that You offer me rest today as well as for eternity. 

DEUTERONOMY 12:9; MICAH 2:10; HEBREWS 4:9; HEBREWS 6:19–20; JOHN 14:2–3; PHILIPPIANS 1:23; REVELATION 21:4; JOB 3:17; MATTHEW 6:20–21; COLOSSIANS 3:2 - Dr. David Jeremiah Life-Changing Moments with God 

Oh the rest we need!  

We have had decades of running here, running there.  It's been ingrained in a few generations to be tied to a device that you MUST answer immediately. 

So much so that a respite from this is called unplugging. 

We have been pretty much 'on the run' since mid October.  We took a leap of faith and were brought to a new city and life in a new town. 

Yet in the midst of this...it doesn't take a genius to see that God's putting the brakes on our rushing around. 

There's plenty of times when a strategic illness happens in order to slow us down or get us to rethink our priorities. 

Indeed in this we would covet your prayers. We both are going through some seasonal things that we haven't in years. 

There's often much difficulty in our finite understanding of illness being a part of God causing all things to work together for good as the Bible says. 

We have great difficulty understanding why God allows some people to go through some things and not others. 

It's even more difficult to count such things as illness as part of counting it all joy when we face such things as the Bible also says. 

When we were in the early stages of moving we were stressed because of some incident with a rented trailer.  We both collapsed and cried out to God.  God basically gave us a 4 hour timeout as an answer.  Who knows what would have happened had we stayed on "our" schedule?  We very well might have avoided a disaster that would have been far worse. 

We don't look at difficulty and rest the same way as God does.  We conflict with the Spirit when we try to push what we want versus what God is saying needs to happen. 

We certainly don't look even at death the same way as God does.  Regardless of your personal feelings or thoughts on it, even death is considered a healing.  In praying for a healing we are praying in part for God's rest for an individual.  God's idea of rest isn't what we consider it to be.

God's idea of rest is eternity spanning. 

God's idea of peace isn't ours.

God's thoughts on Spiritual matters are not ours. When left to ourselves we wouldn't convict anyone of sin, even if it was what they were born with.  Hell is filled with people who do not consider their being there right or proper.  Simply put they don't think they are guilty. Read in the Gospels about what Hell is like and quite easily you see it's the absence of rest and peace. 

Rest is more than an afternoon nap. Rest is more than the absence of activity. 

Rest should accompany contentment. Even if it's uncomfortable.  There's a song with the line "I will praise you in the storm".  

Even in great difficulty we should still find it possible to praise God. 

Even when life makes no sense at all we should still be praising God. 

Even when life is falling apart we should not stop praising God.  

Our rest is not as the world views it. Our rest is found within a Christ-centered life.

When possible, keep songs, hymns and Spiritual songs going in your head and heart.  When possible keep praying thanks to our God who sees our every affliction. 

We have not the ability to see nor fully understand why we go through what we do, but regardless we can still offer up praise to God for our life that is hidden in Jesus. We can offer up praise that we aren't alone in our trials of life. We can still tell Jesus that we love Him. 

We, in these ways, will find a rest that the world cannot understand.